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Communist Party of Ireland
(Note: This is the fictional Communist Party Of Ireland for the Legacy of October Universe and has no relation in any way to the real Communist Party) The Communist Party of Ireland is an Marxist-Leninist party founded in 1933. After being outlawed under the government of W. T. Cosgrave in 1931 (as part of a wider crackdown on Peadar O'Donnell's Saor Éire and the IRA), it was legalised in 1932 under Éamon de Valera's government and subsequently changed its name to the Communist Party of Ireland in 1933 under Seán Murray, who had attended the Lenin School in Moscow. After flirting with Fianna Fáil for a while (a policy criticised by the Communist International), a strong anti-communist public backlash in Ireland occurred around the time of the Spanish Civil War due to the perception that the Popular Front cause was anti-Catholic. The already small CPI subsequently found it very difficult to organise. Nevertheless, some CPI members would fight in the conflict, alongside Republican Congress members, under the XV International Brigade. Some Irish communists opposed Ireland being brought into the Second World War and particularly conscription into the British Armed Forces being applied to Northern Ireland in the conflict. Some members were held in Curragh Camp by the government during the Emergency. As the Soviet Union became more involved in the war after 1941, this proved even more difficult, and the party split; the Protestant-dominated Communist Party of Northern Ireland became a separate body, and the party's southern rump entered the Irish Labour Party (before being expelled and forming the Irish Workers' League). Background The earliest attempt to form a communist political party in Ireland was a result of the Socialist Party of Ireland, founded by James Connolly, changing its name to the Communist Party of Ireland and affiliating with the Communist International in 1921. This organisation was relatively small and included among its ranks figures such as Roddy Connolly and Nora Connolly O'Brien (children of James Connolly, who was killed in the aftermath of the Easter Rising), as well as writer Liam O'Flaherty and Peadar O'Donnell. In practice, this organisation was heavily allied to the anti-Treaty IRA but distinguished itself by calling for a workers' republic. It had one elected TD, Patrick Gaffney, who switched from the Irish Labour Party. This earlier group disbanded in 1923 and joined the Irish Worker League founded by James Larkin as the Irish representative of Comintern (along with Larkin's Workers' Union of Ireland). Larkin broke off his affiliation with Comintern in 1928 after a period of private disillusionment with the Soviet Union. The Connolly siblings attempted to set up a replacement, the Revolutionary Workers’ and Working Farmers’ Party, but this lasted barely a month. Activists associated with James Larkin Jnr (who had attended the Lenin School in Moscow) founded the Revolutionary Workers' Groups in 1930 with their The Irish Workers' Voice (distinguished from Larkin Snr's The Irish Worker) to fully replace the first Communist Party of Ireland. Early Years The party had gone relatively unknown till O'Duffy's coup in 1941 when the party started publically condemning the Fascist government and its oppression of the people of Ireland. Soon the party formed an armed wing known as the "Red Front of Ireland" based off the old German Rot Front which quickly gained support from the many people disillusioned with O'Duffy's fascist regime. For this O'Duffy's paramilitary beat up any members of the party of Red Front and many members were secretly abducted and taken to secret concentration camps where they were tortured and exterminated. 2nd Civil War On November 7th, 1952 the Rot Front in cooperation with disgruntled forces in the army staged a coup in Dublin but a snitch ratted out the plan and the would-be overthrowers went on a 4 day march to Galway where they consolidated their position and formed the Irish Soviet Republic and led it and the Irish Red Army to victory against the fascists. Post-Civil War Post-civil war the party leads the newly formed People's Democratic Republic of Ireland and has plans for autarky and national self-reliance. The party today is very popular among the peasantry and workers for giving them work to do, food, medical care and shelter no matter what and many citizens rever the party as "Ireland's saviour while God sat and watched us bleed to Ireland's Nazis", a idea which is encouraged by the party to stray people further from religion and closer to atheism. The party maintains good relations with the Chinese Workers Communist Party due to their aid in the war and has invited Chinese economic planner to help the party and nation grow stronger and root out revisionism.